Custom training initiatives

We have learned over many years of working with hundreds of different organizations, that the best way to make a real difference with training is to commit to a sustained initiative focused on helping trainees actually learn and develop new skills and implement new practices.

This takes time, energy and money. For maximum impact, the best approach is to provide as many people with as much intensive training in as short a time as possible in order to build momentum for the initiative. Following the initial training, trainees should be provided with follow-up resources, coaching, reminders and refreshers. At regular intervals, trainees should be provided with follow-up sessions for review and problem solving.

We will work with you to plan a full-scale custom training initiative focused on achieving clear measurable business outcomes. We offer thousands of proven best practices organized into more than 90 hours of prepared classroom content designed to be highly engaging, entertaining, and practical. Starting with your desired business outcomes, we will work with you to define the right learning goals and corresponding training content mix for each target group:
(-) Senior leadership.
(-) Managers.
(-) Non-management employees.
(-) Internal trainers and other leaders who can serve as internal champions of the initiative.

During and after a full-scale training initiative, we will encourage you to consider Bruce a deputy member of your team as an adviser and trainer.

Our custom training initiatives typically involve three stages:
(1) Research and customization
(2) Training implementation
(3) Follow-up training and reinforcement

(1) Research and customization.

For any training initiative of any scope, we will work with you in advance to learn as much as we can about your organization and the issues you are facing so that we can customize the training to fit your particular needs. We will ask you to complete a simple management practices questionnaire and also to help us conduct advance email interviews with training participants and sometimes other constituents. In addition, we will ask you to participate in a brief conference call with Bruce in order to walk through the content and delivery plan and make any final adjustments prior to the actual training. This preparation is part of our standard operating procedure and is conducted at no additional cost.

Because we have been conducting workplace interviews and focus groups since 1993, many of our clients choose to take the research stage a giant step further. Following a review of the data from our standard advance questionnaire and email interviews, Bruce will come on-site and personally conduct focus groups and interviews with your leaders, managers, supervisors, and staff. Bruce will then provide you with a written report as well as a high level briefing on his findings and recommendations by telephone conference or in person. As well, Bruce will incorporate this additional research to further customize any training.

Only on-site time is billed.

With your help, Bruce will be able to conduct a series of four focus groups in the course of one morning and as many as six one-on-one interviews in a single afternoon. In an ideal process, Bruce would hear from every person in your organization through focus groups and interviews. In all but the smallest organizations, this is usually cost prohibitive. We will work with you to determine an appropriate sample for a mix of focus groups and one-on-one interviews sufficient for Bruce to gather reportable qualitative data---in order to offer meaningful interpretations and actionable conclusions as well as comparisons to other employers.

It should be noted that one of our goals in the research/customization stage is to allow Bruce to begin building relationships with as many leaders, managers, supervisors and staff as possible. In an ideal process, Bruce tries to build a group of internal ‘champions’ for the training in your organization. Bruce will work with the champions to help them support and strengthen the training initiative before, during and after.

(2) Training implementation.

Most of our programs are designed to be delivered in their entirety in either a one-day (seven hours) or two-day (fourteen hours) format. We will work with you in advance to customize the content and delivery of any one of our programs to meet your specifications. Over the years, we have built and delivered customized programs ranging from one hour to three days for groups ranging from only several participants to several thousand.

The best approach is to provide as many people with as much intensive training in as short a time as possible in order to build momentum for the initiative. One of the top management trainers in the world, Bruce Tulgan (link) consistently receives the highest evaluations from workshop participants. Bruce’s workshops combine his world-class keynote level energy, engagement and entertainment with highly interactive group learning, in which participants work together on the application of concrete best practices to their own real life challenges in the workplace.

It should be noted that we will work with you to develop a custom workbook for participants, which we will ask you to print for participants at your expense. As well, you may wish to purchase copies of one or more of Bruce’s books as takeaways for participants. In addition, Bruce usually gives away dozens of books to participants for free as prizes for active participation.

(3) Follow-up training and reinforcement.

Following any training initiative of any scope, we will invite you to add participants to our regular complimentary video newsletter list. This is a regular email with a link to a video message featuring Bruce and a text accompaniment. This regular video series usually consists of a message from Bruce with some words of advice focused on a particular management challenge along with some concrete management tips. More than 170 back issues of the newsletter going back to 1995 are available for free here at our Web site.

As well, we will invite you to add participants to Bruce's monthly reminder email list for people who have completed one of our back to basics strong management training programs. Bruce sends an email each month to our training program alumni in which he offers reminders and encouragement to continue practicing the back to basics strong management techniques. This is also Bruce’s way of staying in touch with training participants and encouraging them to stay in touch with him. In this way, Bruce has engaged in ongoing email dialogues with thousands of training program alumni who email asking for his guidance in their day to day management relationships.

All of this follow-up support is part of our standard operating procedure and is offered at no additional cost.

Bruce makes a special effort to stay in touch with any internal ‘champions’ in your organization following any training implementation. Bruce will continue to advise internal champions informally by email in their efforts to support the training at no additional cost.

Following the initial training, trainees should be provided with follow-up resources, coaching, reminders and refreshers. At regular intervals, trainees should be provided with follow-up sessions for review and problem solving. We recommend conducting follow-up sessions some time after the initial training implementation (3-6-12 months later) that provide a very powerful reminder, reinforcement, and renewal of the training. This usually involves reconvening training participants for two to four-hour follow-up sessions to discuss the following questions: Have you implemented the best practices taught in the training? How is it going? What problems have you encountered? What solutions have you found? What help do you need?

Of course, many of our clients choose to take the follow-up stage a giant step further and bring Bruce back for these follow-up sessions. These follow-up visits can also be used to have Bruce conduct additional sessions with those who have become internal champions of the program; senior executives; the HR, compensation, staffing, or training team; and also one-on-one executive coaching with select leaders, managers, supervisors, and staff.

Only on-site time is billed.